# Straight > Bent: A Pipe-maker's Perspective



## karatekyle (Nov 2, 2010)

Here's the article. Pretty interesting, I think.

Why I Do Not Make a Lot of Full-Bents


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## DrRus (Jun 5, 2012)

Actual pipe makers have been making perfectly smoking bent pipes for years and while I agree that bent pipes are not for the novice pipe maker, I find the bent pipe sketches quite ridiculous (and I understand why that guy's bent pipes don't smoke well). Of course, if one approaches the subject with a notion of predetermined failure, they will not succeed.

There is no reason why a bent pipe should not be drilled properly, like on the photo here: http://pipedia.org/images/0/09/Parts2.gif in order for the airhole to meet the chamber at the bottom, unlike his ridiculous sketch here: http://1.bp.blogspot.com/-EKKDrvpE-...co/o2RFSIebWS0/s1600/oom+paul+short+tenon.jpg
where the angle of the airhole-to-tenon is completely wrong.


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## karatekyle (Nov 2, 2010)

He includes a picture of a system pipe in the article as well, similar to the Pipedia picture you included. It's obvious the sump would make it easier to place the draught on the bottom of the bowl. But his thoughts on the solubilities of tobacco smoke's tasting elements seem to paint a sumped pipe as a poor "connoisseur's" briar. I don't know, it's tough to say how right or wrong he could be. I sure enjoyed hearing an argument on the dynamics of pipe smoke though.


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## DrRus (Jun 5, 2012)

Actually a slight adjustment of the angle would do the trick even without a system of any kind (red line mine):









I also don't buy his argument that there is any noticeable difference in taste between two pipes, one bent and another straight, if everything else is the same. If anything, the bent pipe would generally smoke cooler, because of the greater distance between amber and mouthpiece alone. Yes, oils are soluble, but not at a rate that would make such a big difference with most tobacco. Of course, there are some that would ghost your pipe something fierce right away, but that's because of the oils added to the tobacco by the manufacturer. I think the bigger issue is not losing some of the taste of the tobacco as you smoke, rather those oils depositing over time to alter the taste enough, but that's why we have pipes dedicated to different blends, if you smoke different blends (and if you don't - no problem at all).

Would bent pipe smoke wetter? I don't think so, not noticeably wetter, judging from my experience. People smoking straight pipes tend to run a cleaner more often, as well. It's easier for the moisture to travel to the smoker's mouth when smoking a straight pipe. I almost never run a pipe cleaner through my bent pipes, unless I smoke very wet tobacco.

I can see an argument "big bowl vs small bowl", where the tobacco in the big bowl would smoke wetter just because the unburnt tobacco will act as a filter, trapping moisture as the smoke passes through, i.e. the tobacco at the bottom of the big bowl would collect much more moisture compare to a small bowl. I think this is why he (wrongly) believes that a bent pipe smokes wetter - bent pipes have generally bigger bowls/chambers than straight pipes.


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## RupturedDuck (Jan 11, 2012)

DrRus said:


> Would bent pipe smoke wetter? I don't think so, not noticeably wetter, judging from my experience.


G.L. Pease also observed that turbulant flow (as compared to laminar) results in condensation. I think the gentleman has a point with regards to the mortise properly fitting the tenon. I'm not sure that there is a huge effect to taste as a result of the condensation, but give pipe juice a place to sit and collect, and over time, your pipe will effect the flavor.

The red line on your picture corrects the approach to the bowl, but creates a problem of alignment with the airhole where the mortise meets the tenon. If you correct that angle, the drill bit would run into the walls of the mortise. I wonder how hard it would be to have stems made where the airhole hooked so that it would meet up with the airhole where you are showing, rather than run the center of the diameter of the tenon?

RD


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## DrRus (Jun 5, 2012)

I wasn't really trying to be perfect, here is a better one:









I do agree that over time ghosting will occur, but that will happen whether you smoke straight or bent and it will happen within the bowl first, way before the rest of the briar.

My point was that he approached bent pipes with the wrong mindset. Yes, it's harder to drill for a bent pipe than a straight one, but discounting them altogether as "inferior" because he can't get his angles right? It sounds to me that he is simply grasping at straws to justify his own inability to drill decent bent pipes.
I can see how drilling a bent pipe is riskier, a small miscalculation of the angle and there goes a good piece of briar in the trash. That's why the majority of the bent pipes are uniform "production" pipes and it takes a special kind of pipe maker to craft them as custom pipes.


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## RupturedDuck (Jan 11, 2012)

Alright, I'll buy that. The first time that I read it, I got that making a bent pipe was inherently tougher to create a pipe without the flaws that he then pointed out were common in the construction of bent pipes, which I agree with. To say that it is impossible to make a bent pipe without these flaws would be a risky thing to say, considering that people have been making them for years. But, it is easy to see that it would be more difficult to eliminate these flaws during the construction of a bent pipe, vs a straight one.

RD



DrRus said:


> I wasn't really trying to be perfect, here is a better one:
> 
> View attachment 38866
> 
> ...


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## freestoke (Feb 13, 2011)

For some reason, looking at what appears to me to be a bad drill the original diagram (it doesn't hit the bottom of the chamber), I'm reminded of one of those old early computer stories. "Yes, we have taken care of the computer room problem. We decided it would be easier to lower the ceilings than put in a raised floor." Why drill the bowl so deep? :ask:


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